Best of December 2020

[TomFulp]

Your votes are in and the Best of December have been determined!

Top Five Animation

#10

The top-ranked entry based on original material and winner of $250 is more free nut. Congrats, @JamesLee!

Hartrup and Oatly will receive a $100 prize as the second-place winner based on original material. Congrats, @BassetFilms!

Top Five Games

The top-ranked game based on original material and winner of $250 is Tankmas ADVENTure.

The three $100 winners are Newgrounds High by @Wandaboy and @milkbarjack, Dead Estate Dressup by @milkbarjack, @MajorWipeout and @milkace, followed by Ninja Demon Runner by @EricDanneskjold.

I also would like to note Poom is a technical marvel, running Doom in Pico-8!

It’s a weird month because Tankmas ADVENTure and Newgrounds High both have site tie-ins which could be considered not truly “original material.” However because they are in-NG, vs outside IP-based, we’re making an exception. We’ll see how that holds up long-term with ongoing game prizes.

Thank you to our game prize sponsors, @AnonymousAlchemist, @Manderby and @53xy83457. The December prizes were larger than usual thanks to an extra donation by @AnonymousAlchemist. The Best of January game prizes will return to $100 each for the top three games based on original material.

Update: The NG Advent team has donated their $250 towards our Drawing Tablet Giveaway! If you know an artist who needs a tablet, let them know applications are still open.

Runner-Up Animation

6. To Catch a Pac-Man

7. How The Grinch Stole A Bunch Of Stuff

8. Snow Dinos

9. Through the Woods

10. Daughter's Revenge (Tales of Alethrion)

11. Wandering Gift

12. FRIDAY NIGHT FUNKIN ON CRACK

13. One For Sorrow: No Evil 039

14. scalpers

15. Duncan & Jones 3

16. JUH JEE JUH BOO BOO - Lou Kelly

17. Frontier Psychiatrist Reanimated

18. Home Alone Simplified

19. James' Weird Little World - EP 1

20. bankrupt

Runner-Up Games

6. Ridgewood Road

7. The Last Flash Game

8. Sonic RPG Episode 10 - The Final Chapter

9. Elemental Tiles

10. Squid! Escape! Fight!

11. IndestructoTank! GB

12. Arm Of Revenge Trial

13. Hazel the Plant Witch

14. Color Cube

15. Cats on Mars

16. Down Below - Christmas Special

17. Slipways

18. Shake Art

19. Detective GUI

20. Ordeals of December

The voter of the month and winner of honorary Supporter status is @mait192!

Thank you everyone who participated in December, it was a great end to a great year on NG, despite not being a great year outside of NG. Here's a 2020 Recap post!

Be sure to check out the Top Featured Art from December, as well as the Top Featured Music.

With the new hubs you can also browse the Top Featured Movies and Top Featured Games for December. It’s interesting to compare these lists to the results from people ranking their favorites for the month - close but not identical.

The custom date ranges allow you to revisit the top featured movies from December 2019, December 2015, or whatever. Click the play button in the lower left corner of a thumbnail to launch it in-page and watch movies back-to-back. If something isn’t to your liking, the right arrow key will skip to the next movie. You can also use the number keys to jump to 10%, 20%, etc.

Speedpaint Videos

Watching the incoming movies in this format, I’m starting to think we should make a final ruling about Speedpaints on NG. When people started uploading Speedpaints, we decided to allow it because we didn’t want to be too limiting. Looking at it now, Speedpaints often feel out of place when watching animation back to back and we have to remove a lot of them for using unlicensed commercial music. 

Would you be in agreement if we simply stopped allowing them, at least until a date where we have a different option for where they would be showcased?

Ongoing Events

Pixel Day, January 23rd! Read that post for more info. Almost $1,200 in prizes and growing, with your support!

@ConnorGrail, @Teravex and @CzySzy made be available to make music for your Pixel Day movie or game! You could try pitching your concept to one of them. Any other musicians want to volunteer in this thread? You can share whatever music you make on Pixel Day and be eligible for prizes as well.

NG is also hosting a Flash Forward Jam. We’re gonna surprise people with a bunch of new interactive Flash creations, running in browsers this January thanks to Ruffle, after Flash has been officially removed. Over $2,600 in prizes!

@Xinxinix is hosting a Sexiest Outfit Art Contest and Concept of Love Art Contest.

@SevenSeizeHasCookies is hosting a Valentine’s Day-Themed Writing Contest.

The daily Drawing Tablet Giveaway and Featured Flash Without Flash will continue next!

[Czyszy]

I'm definitely gonna do an animation for the sexy outfit compo.

[spoiler911]

Tales of Alethrion got 10th?!?!?!

I don't understand you guys... It's like y'all ignore talent and hard work in favor of lazy, crude, and ironic jokes!

[GeoKureli]

Thanks to everyone who voted for Advent, to everyone who put blood sweat and tears into their contributions for Advent and to everyone who liberally applied the word "original" to Advent. It means so much to know that this collab brought joy to the newgrounds community, and I hope that I continue to see the community strengthen throughout 2021.

NG Advent has always been about giving (I wanted to call it Tanksgiving), I don't know if @BrandyBuizel or myself will be the ones carrying the torch next year, but I hope whoever does continues the tradition with that spirit.

[UnevenPrankster]

In the future there could be some place for publishing speedpaints, as of now for me at least it's not as interesting as animation, and showcase of cool techniques could be placed within tutorial-type posts instead. What does everyone else think?

[BoMToons]

I think speedpaints should go in the art portal. More support there for that brand of media would be cool.

Congrats to all the winners! Looking forward to the Flash Forward jam entries!

[Nabella]

At 1/7/21 01:22 PM, UnevenPrankster wrote:In the future there could be some place for publishing speedpaints, as of now for me at least it's not as interesting as animation, and showcase of cool techniques could be placed within tutorial-type posts instead. What does everyone else think?

I concur. The Movies Portal is intended for finished animations and films. A sped up process video showing how you got to an end product would better fit a YouTube embed underneath your finished piece in the Art Portal. I understand it would be nice to receive recognition for your process and completed art, but wouldn't people 5-starring your painting already understand there's a process involved?

If we really can't do away with them, I think a fair compromise would be to give the Art Portal a fifth category just for tutorials. Though, if we do that, it may defeat the purpose of art forums and news posts, which is to reach out and get help.

Anyone else have two cents they'd like to share?

[Wiesi]

Congratulations to all the winners!!!

Still thinking about the Speedpaint videos... Difficult...

[TomFulp]

At 1/7/21 01:33 PM, BoMToons wrote:I think speedpaints should go in the art portal. More support there for that brand of media would be cool.

Congrats to all the winners! Looking forward to the Flash Forward jam entries!

It really would be slick if you could upload the speedpaint as a secondary file to a finished piece of art all in the same project. Once the Art Portal movies to the project system I could imagine that being more doable.... Something to keep in mind.

[Damianito]

Speedpaints shouldn't be on movie portal just like GIFs and songs.

[TheWalkyBlocky]

Congrats to all

[Manderby]

At 1/7/21 12:44 PM, spoiler911 wrote:Tales of Alethrion got 10th?!?!?!

Yeah, i totally agree. ;(

About speedpaints: Currently, I would be totally fine to remove them. Later on, they could be added as secondary material to the art portal. Or just keep it a YouTube video. That's where I would watch it anyway. I don't watch that here.

[Ferstofus]

At 1/7/21 02:16 PM, TomFulp wrote:It really would be slick if you could upload the speedpaint as a secondary file to a finished piece of art all in the same project. Once the Art Portal movies to the project system I could imagine that being more doable.... Something to keep in mind.

This idea is nice, would be a great solution. Until that ever gets released though... I'd allow Speedpaints in the portal, just so there is a venue for them on NG. They're kinda like tutorials anyway, and we allow those.

I guess they can also be submitted as gifs in the Art Portal, but that's not a perfect solution right, you can't pause the video and whatnot.

[squidly]

In a long term + hard solution, would it be possible to just host speedpaints as an embedded video on the Art Portal?

[Graeme]

At 1/7/21 12:28 PM, TomFulp wrote:Speedpaint Videos

Watching the incoming movies in this format, I’m starting to think we should make a final ruling about Speedpaints on NG. When people started uploading Speedpaints, we decided to allow it because we didn’t want to be too limiting. Looking at it now, Speedpaints often feel out of place when watching animation back to back and we have to remove a lot of them for using unlicensed commercial music. 

Would you be in agreement if we simply stopped allowing them, at least until a date where we have a different option for where they would be showcased?

I personally dislike that type of content mixed in alongside regular portal submissions.

I think they are interesting! It's just not what I come to Newgrounds for...

Maybe there will at some point be a separate place on the site for videos like vlogs, speedpaints, etc (as long as they all relate to animation, creation, game design, etc - not just a video essay about Tarantino film or something).

But for now I think it's best to steer that sort of content away.

[TomFulp]

At 1/7/21 03:48 PM, squidly wrote:In a long term + hard solution, would it be possible to just host speedpaints as an embedded video on the Art Portal?

You can already embed a YouTube video in the author commentary but it would be cool if we could host the video eventually. Would still need to keep reminding people to use proper music... I really want to push the culture of making use of the Audio Portal here! Imagine if every speedpaint could introduce you to a new musician on NG. Maybe we just strip the audio out of the speedpaint video and let people pick an Audio Portal song that will play with the video.. But that's getting even more complicated.

[TeraVex]

Congrats to this month's winners! The past couple of months have been great eating here on Newgrounds! Here's to a strong January of great stuff!

[Cyberdevil]

Congrats to the winners!

At 1/7/21 01:48 PM, Nabella wrote:A sped up process video showing how you got to an end product would better fit a YouTube embed underneath your finished piece in the Art Portal.

I really like this idea.

Hope the already submitted speedpaints don't get removed if the rules change now - not the ones that use the right music and all at least, but for future ones I'd personally be fine with embeds instead. Considering speedpaint videos don't require much effort to make it seems like a potentially pretty huge space/bandwidth explosion if they're allowed officially too - just like with regular video. Advising on external embeds under art submissions seems like a simple way to let them co-exist alongside the art without opening those floodgates, and with no issues regarding what music those speedpaints use.

Seems like the ideal way. They wouldn't ever feel out of place in the description space either.

If space is really no major consideration though that speedpaints-with-NG-audio idea sounds pretty neat too...

[FutureCopLGF]

A great month of games! Thank goodness I had some holiday vacation to play these games: after the drought in November came an absolutely deluge of games to get through this month!

Certainly some mixed feelings on the top games this month: a lot of ones were remakes like POOM and Indestructotank which made me feel a bit conflicted whether to award it since it isn't completely original content (but nevertheless fun content) and there were some Newgrounds ones like the Advent Calendar and Visual Novel which, while definitely great, I feel compelled to ignore since they already have a lot of backing and I want to give some others a shout-out.

But then again, I see Ninja Demon Runner got in there which I'm surprised: I think it had a, while simple, very addictive and good feeling loop and I'm glad to see it get some, in my opinion, well-deserved attention! You never know what people'll vote for: always a surprise!

Anyway, hope everyone had a great holiday break: thanks for the games, all, and I hope I can provide some nice feedback as usual!

[MANUNAM]

Congrats to all the winners, it was a fun month full of great content!

On the topic of speedpaint videos I personally will agree if NG stopped allowing them, or at least instructed to embed the video as part of the Art submition and not in the Movie portal.

I uploaded one last year as a test and it was my first collaboration with a friend in the audio portal, it was a good experience. But I always feel like it didn't have the Newgrounds spirit, I find myself multiple times looking if there was something against or about this kind of video.

I understand they are in a grey area like when an excessive long gif in some point starts to become a silent film. but It will be sad if a great number of speedpaints or timelapses with big file sizes clogged the servers or obscure the awesome original work put on short films.

[LittleLuckyLink]

I personally feel that Speedpaint videos are out of place in the portal. They're not necessarily bad, I kinda like watching them, but it'd be more fitting if they embedded/linked the videos in the art submissions themselves. It'd be cool to have some type of hypothetical system where they could upload the speed paint videos and then have some type of interface to choose music from the NG audio portal (and have the option to sort by licensing, of course.)

Just throwing random ideas out there, seems like something that might be a bit extra, especially when people can just upload them to Youtube and embed them. Might be something cool to look at if you're trying to keep things NG-centric, which I am all in favor for.

[Comick]

Considering almost none of the animations I voted for this month even hit the top 20 is a disservice! So I am going to shout out to the ones who TOTALLY deserved some space on the best of Dec list.

Happy Boxing day @thecigarliker

The Last Mother @GVlash

PLONK @Chalecus

GOOEY GOATS @Sonjira

The Grand Little Gift @KevinTemmer

Some real gems here! And all ORIGINAL creations ^_^

[cyangorilla]

At 1/7/21 12:28 PM, TomFulp wrote:Would you be in agreement if we simply stopped allowing them, at least until a date where we have a different option for where they would be showcased?

Yes.

I don't think timelapses have a place among animation. You can always embed a youtube video with the timelapse to the post.

[Cyberdevil]

At 1/7/21 07:06 PM, FuturecopLGF wrote:Anyway, hope everyone had a great holiday break: thanks for the games, all, and I hope I can provide some nice feedback as usual!

Still putting the work in with those reviews!!! Much props!

At 1/8/21 01:15 AM, Comick wrote:Some real gems here! And all ORIGINAL creations ^_^

And 3/5 didn't even make the daily Top 5! Real gems indeed. The Christmas one was maybe the simplest but surprisingly emotional too. The Last Mother a new favorite. The others unexpectedly thorough; creative ventures of varied sort. All great. Real shame they didn't climb a bit higher. Thanks for sharing!

At 1/7/21 06:10 AM, matt-likes-swords wrote:If I recall, the sky should be blue! But otherwise the game plays just as I remember it.

Ruffle potentially randomly swapping out certain colors in submissions hmm. :D That'd be pretty interesting... the powers unofficial plugins may harness hmm, if such things are possible to do there'd be some interesting opportunities for say holiday-specific alternations on certain fundamental things, intriguing idea...

[TomFulp]

At 1/8/21 08:45 AM, Cyberdevil wrote:Ruffle potentially randomly swapping out certain colors in submissions hmm. :D That'd be pretty interesting... the powers unofficial plugins may harness hmm, if such things are possible to do there'd be some interesting opportunities for say holiday-specific alternations on certain fundamental things, intriguing idea...

It's likely something to due with the default background color in the SWF, where Ruffle might be running a black default instead of one that was set to blue.

[TomFulp]

At 1/8/21 11:22 AM, 7Y wrote:If someone is on mobile, will Ruffle work on mobile? Just wondering

Ruffle works on mobile but games with Ruffle won't attempt to run unless we've checked a box noting they are touchscreen friendly. So you can watch animation and play touch-friendly Flash games on your phone, but Alien Hominid won't attempt to run because it requires a keyboard. At some point Ruffle may allow for a touch interface mapped to keyboard keys, so you COULD play Alien Hominid on your phone if the key mapping date is available.

[Warlord-of-Noodles]

At 1/7/21 12:44 PM, spoiler911 wrote:Tales of Alethrion got 10th?!?!?!

I don't understand you guys... It's like y'all ignore talent and hard work in favor of lazy, crude, and ironic jokes!

Winners are gonna be one-shots most of the time. Tales is one in a series. The more something is able to be known (i.e. short, easy to digest or fanfic) the better it'll probably do.

Tales is my fav on the list, folk ought to go give it a shot if they haven't already.

[PssychoPie]

Congrats to the winners!!

[DoctorStrongbad]

Congrats to all the winners. December 2020 was so full of great submissions, and ended a very long year.